By Peter Roff | Feb. 24, 2014
There’s a battle underway in the West to
determine who Arizona’s next governor will be. Among the crowded field of
Republicans vying for the nomination is one who is already being talked about as
a potential national leader, the kind of politician that can restore the public
confidence in the GOP who, if he wins, will soon become one of those “names you
know” whose future potentially involves some time in Washington.
Elected state treasurer in 2010, Doug Ducey has
spent the last four years building a reputation for competent, consistent,
conservative leadership on a range of issue. He was first attracted to politics
by the same passions that generated the activism of the tea party: concerns
about rising government indebtedness, reckless, out-of-control spending, rising
taxes and the size and scope of government.
What made him unique was his business background,
which served him and the people of Arizona well. As an entrepreneur, Ducey and a
partner grew the Cold Stone Creamery ice cream shop from a single store to a
chain with nearly 1,400 locations nationwide by the time they sold the business
in 2007.
He’s not been afraid to take on difficult tasks,
one of which involved his state’s Permanent Land Endowment Trust Fund. Upon
taking office he discovered that the fund, which takes the funds generated
anytime state lands are sold, with 93 percent of the annual returns used to fund
K-12 education, was not operating to its maximum potential.
After initiating an asset allocation study to
determine just why, in some years, local schools received generous distributions
and, in others, virtually nothing he discovered there was a flaw in the
education funding formula. He worked to produce needed reforms to the system
that garnered broad, bipartisan support in the legislature and which voters
approved via Proposition 118 in the 2012 election.
By applying sound business management principles
to his state responsibilities, Ducey was responsible for what for Arizona
taxpayers and children and teachers in public schools amounted to a “win-win”
solution.
His efforts didn’t stop there, however. He’s been
a fighter on behalf of the taxpayers, as his efforts as the leader of the
opposition to Proposition 204, which would have permanently extended a temporary
sales tax, makes clear. Back in 2010, in the midst of the recession that
hammered state governments from Maine to California, Arizona voters were
persuaded to approve a ballot measure enacting a temporary three-year 1 percent
hike in the state sales tax to help close the gap between revenue and
spending. Shortly before it was due to expire some of the politicians in the
state capital, the teachers and other public employees, and some of the
developers who are dependent on state support of their projects, reached the
unsurprising conclusion that this tax increase had been a good thing for Arizona
and should be made permanent, with the proceeds largely directed into public
education – but with no reforms and no additional oversight associated with
it.
After a complicated road that included a stop
before the Arizona Supreme Court, the petition to make the tax permanent made
its way onto the ballot in August 2012, just weeks before the it would go before
the voters and without any opposition organized against it. It was expected to
pass, as most measures to fund education do, and was registering support in the
low 60s at the outset of the campaign. Ducey stepped up, took charge and led the
campaign against the measure. He raised more than $1.8 million to fund the
opposition to it, crisscrossed the state debating its supporters and, in as much
as anything can be a “one man show” in American politics these days, became the
principal advocate for voters who believed that “temporary tax increases” should
be just that – temporary.
To the surprise of the political establishment in
both parties, but not to Ducey, the initiative to make the temporary 1 percent
sales tax increase permanent was crushed, going down 64 percent to 36 percent.
As a result of his efforts and of others who worked against the ballot measure,
the tax expired in May 2013 like it was supposed to and Arizona taxpayers saved
an estimated $1 billion a year.
With a record like that it’s not surprising that
Ducey has attracted national attention. Nor is it surprising that local
political reporters see him as a man with a future. One, Mike Sunnucks of the
Phoenix Business Journal described him as “the one bridge between the
conservative and business wings of the GOP.”
Ducey, who also has the support of social
conservatives, is that rare politician in the Reagan model who knows how to
unify the GOP and win support from Democrats for good ideas that benefit
everyone. In a party that too often has a habit of eating its own, of polarizing
and paralyzing the electorate through poor campaign tactics and careless
rhetoric, Arizona’s current treasurer and probable next governor has shown he
has the skills to assemble coalitions that can win. He has learned well the
lesson that no matter how good a campaign’s tactics are, you have to give the
voters something worth voting for. Doug Ducey is one of the GOP’s rising stars
in the west, a man who deserves all the attention he is soon going to get. US News
